


with my eyes closed

by karikes



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Romance, Soulmates, part 2 features Vulcan!Uhura i'm really proud of that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2018-12-23 21:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11998047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karikes/pseuds/karikes
Summary: Leonard wonders briefly if there’s a universe out there somewhere where she isn’t his home before he realizes he doesn’t want to think about that reality. He doesn’t have to.They find each other in every lifetime, no matter who they are.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from [this quote](heartcountry.tumblr.com/post/162825010517/i-know-where-you-are-with-my-eyes-closed-we-are).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mirror universe, graphic violence, major character death.

i.

Leonard McCoy takes his oath to the empire at five, like every child does. He takes life after life for the express purpose of causing pain. Except he does what he does to survive, and he always slips his victims a hypo somewhere before the pain gets too bad.

He keeps his head down, for the most part. He can’t hide his surprise when Uhura chooses him to warm her bed, but he’s not going to refuse her when her dagger is at his throat and he has wanted her as much as the next crew member all these years.

Leonard wonders if in a different universe, she would have chosen someone else, but it is him she clings to when there is no one to see or hear.

Nyota whispers her secret into his skin, after years of their tentative trust. 

“I don’t like to kill. I would prefer a quiet life with a child and a home full of warmth.”

Leonard shifts and draws her closer in the darkness. “You could be murdered for such a statement.”

“I’ve seen your hypos,” she says, almost too quiet for him to hear.

Leonard says nothing. He cannot incriminate himself, no matter what Nyota has just said. He just nods into the darkness.

Nyota gets killed three days later. Captain Kirk’s dagger drips with her blood as Leonard swallows the bile in his throat. The look his captain gives him tells him everything he needs to know.

He flees into the Delta Quadrant in a shuttle, taking only one of Nyota’s medals for company. He will remember her always, the one bright point in his years of violence and death. Leonard does not attempt to find someone to love. The Empire took that from him. But they cannot take his hands, and their power to heal. He does what he can for everyone who comes to him, and keeps Nyota’s medal pinned on the inside of his jacket.


	2. Chapter 2

ii.

Leonard has never liked Vulcans that much, simply because it’s hard for a man like him to trust someone who places no value- or rather, a completely different set of values- on emotion. He does consider Spock his friend, though- a close and valued friend. Maybe it’s because Leonard has spent years with Spock and understands the slight movements of his eyebrows and mouth that denote his feelings.

When he’s on Vulcan for Jim and Spock’s wedding, Leonard feels incredibly uncomfortable. Everyone is formal and stiff except for Lady Amanda, who is busy with wedding preparations. Vulcan weddings aren’t lavish by human standards, but they are long. He feels lost and out of place in the halls of the Earth Embassy, where he prefers to stay. Amanda insists he wouldn’t be intruding, but Leonard refuses anyways. He’s not sure he could quantify exactly how he feels about being on an alien planet for three weeks while his best friends get married. They want him there, but everything about Vulcan just rubs him the wrong way.

It’s the fourth day of desert sun and uncomfortable chairs when Spock introduces Leonard to his childhood best friend. 

Leonard raises an eyebrow when he learns that her name is Nyota and not T’p-whatever. “I wasn’t aware your people believed in unique names,” he smiles.

Nyota raises an eyebrow, her face remaining neutral otherwise. “I was similarly unaware your people believed in questioning one’s existence only a few moments after meeting.”

Leonard doesn’t even try to hide his laughter. “I’m Leonard, Nyota. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She calls him Dr. McCoy despite his insistence. He should have known better, after the years Spock refused to call him by his first name.

Spock disappears when Jim comes to ask him about their wedding gowns and Leonard is left in the company of Nyota. He doesn’t know exactly what to say, so he settles for, “Would it be rude to ask for the story behind your name?”

The rich brown of Nyota’s eyes reveals nothing about what she is thinking. She gestures with a perfectly manicured hand towards the alcove to his right. “It would be more amenable to sit if we are going to converse. Unless you would prefer to walk?”

Leonard finds himself watching her for a fraction too long, tracing the afternoon light across her dark skin- what little of it is showing.

“Walking is better,” he finally says. “My ass hurts from all the things you call chairs around here.”

It might just be his imagination, but Leonard swears Nyota’s mouth twitches ever so slightly.

Nyota’s parents lived in Kenya for five years. Both of them work for the Federation. Her mother liked the sound of Swahili names and decided to break with tradition. Nyota discloses this information in the clipped tone Spock used when Leonard first met him. He can’t help but wonder what her tone of voice sounds like when it’s soft and rounded; treating the words that leave her mouth like friends instead of tools.

Leonard tells her some stories about being a doctor, uncertain about her feelings on everything he says. There’s no real way to judge how their conversation is going except for minute facial movements that he can’t look for because he’s trying to watch where he’s walking.

Nyota tells him that she has an obligation after half an hour, but that their time together “has not been unpleasant.”

Leonard watches her walk gracefully away from him, her crimson scarf fluttering behind her, thinking about her last words. That was the closest thing to a compliment a Vulcan would utter, an experience being “not unpleasant.”

There is something about Nyota that he does not understand. She seems familiar somehow, as if he has known her in another lifetime.

*

They meet often after that, to exchange stories about Spock or just for Leonard to listen to Nyota talk about her work at the VSA. He isn’t stupid by a long shot, but he loves how intelligent she is and how passionate she is about her job, despite not expressing it the same way a human woman would. 

Leonard would be stupid not to find Nyota beautiful. He makes no presumptions, though. He knows she is approximately the same age as Spock, so he must be older than her by at least ten years. Not that that would be a problem, due to the long life of her species.

He thinks too much. He’s here on Vulcan for a couple of weeks, and the likelihood of him seeing Nyota ever again is slimmer than the likelihood she thinks he is attractive. Even slimmer is the chance that she wants to act on that attraction.

Leonard watches himself carefully when he is with her, and if Jim winks at him one evening while they are playing chess, he makes sure his hands do not brush against Nyota’s and refuses to respond to his friend’s wink.

*

They stand next to each other during Jim and Spock’s six hour wedding, a foot between them. Leonard carefully does not think about being able to reach out and touch Nyota’s brown skin with his tanned fingers.

He does not say goodbye before he leaves. It seems useless.

*

He receives an invitation to be a guest lecturer at the VSA for a year six months after Jim and Spock get married. He can’t be sure Nyota sent the job offer, but it’s a good opportunity and he would be lying if he said he didn’t want to see her again. Chapel can handle the medbay, and Leonard is willing to tolerate the stiffness of Vulcan for Nyota’s company.

She greets his shuttle, her head held high and her face just as he remembers it. “Leonard.”

“Nyota.” Leonard raises the ta’al in greeting. He doesn’t know what else to say. Is there even something to say?

She doesn’t seem to think so, so he is left trailing her to his quarters. 

“Where are you staying?” Leonard almost regrets his audacity, but Nyota replies a little too quickly.

“I live with my parents.” Her mouth closes, her lips pressing into each other, and she looks past him for a moment. 

Leonard suddenly thinks of Spock’s mention that all Vulcan children are bonded at seven. He wonders what happened to Nyota’s bondmate, but it’s a deeply personal subject, so he does not ask.

She knows what he is thinking, though. “My bondmate died,” Nyota says. Her jaw twitches ever so slightly. Leonard wants to offer some small comfort, but he does not know how without causing offense so he says what he knows.

“I grieve with thee.” It’s not in Vulcan, but Leonard isn’t sure his mouth could work its way around their syllables.

“Thank you,” Nyota says. She leaves abruptly.

*

The next time they see each other, Leonard is walking out of a classroom, a stack of padds in his hands. Nyota is waiting for him in the hall, the set of her shoulders odd for such a poised species. She does not talk until he is in his office and she has shut the door behind them.

“It was four years ago. He could not get to me in time for-” Nyota halts, watching Leonard set the padds on his desk. “You are a doctor and a friend of Spock. You know of the burning?” She waits for Leonard’s nod before continuing. “He was documenting the cave structures on Delta Vega, half an hour away by shuttle. It was near his time of burning, and he still chose to go- recklessly. He lost his communicator in the snow somehow. They found him twisted in agony. There was nothing we could do, even though I could feel his burning in my mind, taste his pain for every minute of his death- we could not find him in time. His mind was too far gone to think or direct anyone to help.” Her eyes drop from Leonard’s face. “I have seen a healer, but he could not erase the memory, only the pain of a broken bond.”

Leonard is uncertain again- always. He decides to say the careful thing. “Thank you for trusting me with this information.”

Nyota meets his eyes. “Leonard,” she says, and the tone of her voice changes. 

He feels afraid then, of what might happen- of what might not. “Yes?”

“It is illogical to desire that which we cannot have,” Nyota says, clear and warm all at once. She takes a step towards Leonard.

He can feel the space between them shortening and does not want to rectify it. “What do you mean?”

Nyota’s fingers brush the back of his hand. Leonard can hear how sharp his inhale is, and he does not know what to do.

“No one wants a bondmate who failed her first, except to save her from the burning.” Her fingers lift, but Leonard can still feel the place she touched as if she is still touching him.

He raises his hand and brushes her cheek with his knuckles. “There was nothing you could do for him that you did not try to do. I’m divorced. I’ve failed before.” His hand rises to trace the cartilage of her ear, softly covering the point with his fingers. “I want you. If you’ll have me.”

Nyota says something in Vulcan he does not understand and then her hand is wrapping around his and he leans down to kiss her and he thinks that perhaps he would be willing to tolerate a hundred years of desert if he had this woman to keep him company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vulcan!Uhura will be making an appearance in another fic sometime in the future. It was just such a good idea I can’t just use it once and never touch it again.


	3. Chapter 3

iii.

“Jim, remind me why the hell we’re on this stupid jungle planet again.” 

Leonard is incredibly fed up with this entire expedition. They’re supposed to be on shore leave, but no, Jim decided to drag him and Spock to this supposedly uninhabited corner of the galaxy while the  _ Enterprise _ restocks at the closest starbase.

It’s idiotic and he really wants to be in his room having a nice nap instead of hacking through bushes and having to deal with four foot long bright purple lizards that just watch and don’t actually do anything. Spock’s busy with his tricorder and Jim’s having the time of his life, while Leonard is stuck listening to the two of them moon over each other and the planet.

“Because it’s fun, Bones. Now shut up.”

“It is an enjoyable experience, Leonard,” Spock chimes in, and Leonard has never wanted to rip those pointy ears off more. He’s hot and sweaty and he wants a nap, but the ground is barely fit to walk on with all the lizard shit.

“Maybe if you’re delusional,” he replies, and absentmindedly traces some lines on a tree. It looks like they’re painted on somehow, the bright red swirling and twisting halfway down the trunk. 

“Jim,” Leonard says, something in the back of his brain registering. “Spock,” the tone of his voice heads towards warning. “There’s Vulcan script on this tree.”

Spock and Jim crowd around him. 

“Welcome visitor,” Spock reads. “I would prefer to leave this planet soon.”

He scans the paint and says, “The paint is made from a native plant. It is recent, within the last two or three days, depending on the rain cycle.”

Jim raises his eyebrows. “So there’s a Vulcan stuck on an unnamed class M planet in the back of the Gamma Quadrant?”

“Seems unlikely, but it appears to be the truth,” Spock says.

“Great, maybe you two can bond,” Leonard says. 

There’s more Vulcan script on a further three trees, saying the same thing, and then there’s one in Standard. As the three of them move deeper into the rainforest, the words are written in language after language, Vulcan and Standard being the most common, but dozens of Federation languages as well. Spock can translate a lot of them, while he can only identify others.

When they emerge at last into a large clearing, Leonard feels strangely afraid. Whoever is here, whatever race they are, they are either in possession of a universal translator or just know a lot of languages. There’s a hut at the far end of the clearing. It’s painted the same red as the trees. 

Jim straightens his uniform and puts his hands on his hips. “I’m going to go knock on the door.”

Spock pulls his phaser out. “There is a possibility the lifeform here is hostile.”

“I’m just going to stand here,” Leonard says. He’s curious, but quite willing to let Spock and Jim do the initial greeting.

There’s no response to Jim’s knock, so he gives the door an experimental push. It remains shut, so he shrugs and says, “I guess we’ll wait until whoever is here returns.”

It’s half an hour before a woman appears. She’s dressed simply, her long black hair tied back tightly. Her brown skin has a sheen of sweat on it and her expression is neutral. It takes her a moment to register Leonard and his friends, but when she does, she is wary of them, clutching a dagger in her hand as she approaches. She stops maybe ten feet away, raising her hand in the ta’al when she sees Spock. 

Leonard doesn’t know very much Vulcan, but he knows that this woman has impeccable inflection.

Spock turns after he and the woman have a brief exchange. “This is Lieutenant Commander Nyota Uhura. She has been stranded here for two hundred and forty days.”

*

Leonard gives Lt. Commander Uhura a full physical once they’re on the  _ Enterprise _ again. She’s low on a couple of vitamins, but that’s to be expected. She is in excellent shape besides her deficiencies. Uhura does snap at him when he accidentally applies a hypo too hard to her shoulder. 

He apologizes. “I didn’t mean to do it quite that hard.”

Uhura raises an eyebrow. She watched him administer a hypo too sharply to Jim for a scratch he got in the jungle an hour previously. He had not apologized to Jim, and had instead berated Jim for not being more careful.

“How long have you known Captain Kirk?” Uhura watches him take her blood pressure.

Leonard’s eyes stay on his tricorder. “Five years.”

“Before your mission started, then?”

“Yes.” He wonders exactly what Uhura is getting at.

“And how long have Captain Kirk and Commander Spock been together?”

Leonard’s eyebrows rise. “Spock say something about Jim in Vulcan to you?”

“No. The commander just doesn’t use Vulcan personal space around the captain.”

“They aren’t exactly subtle. It’s been three years for them, and if you want more details, all you have to do is ask Jim. He will willingly tell you every detail of his romantic life.”

“I’m good, thanks.” Uhura’s voice is tinged with sarcasm, but she’s smiling ever so slightly when he looks.

“You’re all set,” Leonard says, after too long a pause. Her smile is the most beautiful thing he’s seen in a very long time. 

It doesn’t matter. Lt. Commander Uhura will be dropped off at Starbase 14 in less than two hours. She will be assigned to a ship after Starfleet figures out what to do with someone whose ship crashed on a backwater planet four years ago. Leonard will stay on the  _ Enterprise _ with Jim and Spock and the rest of the crew, and go home to Jo in three months. He will probably never see Uhura again.

*

Admiral Leventhal knows Uhura, because of course she does. The admiral pulls Uhura in for a hug. Leonard is only there in case the admiral has questions about Uhura’s pysch eval, but he feels as if he is intruding somehow to see the two women smile and laugh.

The admiral doesn’t have any questions for Leonard, but he isn’t excused either, so he tries to disappear into the corner of the couch while Jim and Uhura give their reports. 

Afterwards, Uhura turns to Leonard in the corridor. “Eva- Admiral Leventhal- says I might get posted to the  _ Enterprise. _ ”

Leonard’s forehead creases. “We have a communications chief already.”

“Yes, but Lieutenant Commander Willits has apparently been wanting to teach for some time now and spend more time with his family.”

He isn’t sure exactly what he’s going to do if he has to face his attraction to Uhura every day. Probably nothing, knowing him. There isn’t a terrible age difference or anything that would keep Leonard from asking her out- but he doesn’t date. He’s old and has a daughter back on Earth. It’s just never made sense, no matter that Joss remarried when Jo was seven.

*

It takes five weeks before Leonard has cause to say a single word to Uhura. They’re on the turbolift after both working double shifts.

“Have a good sleep.” Uhura smiles at him when he looks at her in surprise.

He doesn’t even have time to mumble thank you- he’s eloquent enough when he’s got something to complain about, but absolutely tongue-tied in the presence of the most beautiful woman he has ever seen- before she’s getting off the turbolift. 

Leonard almost forgets to get off after her, stopping the doors only by slamming his hand on the button.

He can’t sleep for an hour because he’s thinking about her smiling at him, the soft rise in her tone when she said those four words to him.

*

Leonard smiles at Uhura the next day across the cafeteria. He doesn’t stay to see what she does, and maybe it’s because he’s afraid of what will happen, and maybe it’s because Jim is approaching and he doesn’t want to explain himself. It took enough gumption to smile at the lieutenant commander, and he’s not sure has any more to tell Jim why exactly he just did that.

Uhura finds him at the bar that night. Her smile makes his hands shake and his mouth go dry.

Leonard manages to say “Good evening,” before swallowing a mouthful of whisky too quickly.

“Doctor McCoy,” she replies. She sits right next to him. She doesn’t order a drink.

“How are you?” He’s terrible at this. It’s been decades since he got divorced, and over a decade since he tried dating, and it shows.

“I’d be better if you tell me why you smiled at me this morning and then didn’t even have the courtesy to give me the time of day before leaving.” Uhura raises her eyebrows.

Leonard shifts in his seat, suddenly feeling like his collar is too tight. He clears his throat and stares at his hand, flat on the bar. He wills his leg to stop shaking. It doesn’t.

“I have a daughter.” 

Uhura’s eyebrows rise even further. “And that’s relevant to you smiling at me?”

Leonard gapes a little helplessly. “I mean, I’m not young. And you are- younger than me at least.”

She just waits for him to gather himself. It takes him a minute.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen and I’d like to call you darlin’ and watch the stars with you and also kiss you.”

Leonard stops, a little breathless and a lot feeling like he’s a stupid chicken about to get his head cut off. Uhura leans in, her hand sliding onto his knee. She kisses him, and every anxious thought flees from his head, because all he can think about is her.

“You can start by calling me Nyota,” she says.

Something in Leonard’s chest settles. 

“Leonard- or Len, if you like.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhura and the admiral know each other because they're exes :') Also, feel free to make up a reason Uhura's crew isn't around. I just wasn't feeling a complicated or dramatic backstory.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to listen to [moonlight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN3UOb3iiTE) and cry while reading this. I listened to it and cried while I wrote it.

iv.

Nyota enjoys being a TA. There’s just something so satisfying about grading papers, even if it means she has virtually no free time. It’s not like she has that much of it anyways, and she likes feeling useful. Commander Spock and her get along quite well, the teacher’s lounge is cushy and has a nice selection of teas, and she gets to tell people no all the time. 

It’s not that Nyota is cruel. There’s just something intensely satisfying about watching someone who wants more than they worked for being rejected. She doesn’t have time for lazy people, and neither does Starfleet. 

There are some rumors about her and Spock, and once she might have confirmed them, but that time has passed, and they find nothing but companionship in each other’s company. They are both quiet, but passionate when they need to be. She likes reviewing material she has already learned and occasionally having the pleasure of sitting in on a class she hasn’t taken before. It’s like she’s getting paid to do what she loves.

Nyota still itches to be on a starship, of course. She’s here for a reason, and she hasn’t gone through years of stress and hard work to come back and teach. It’s not what she wants to do for the rest of her life, no matter how much she enjoys it.

The teacher’s lounge, though- this makes the hard work worth it. She’s allowed to study in here any time she wants- which is all the time. The latest rumor going around about her is that she doesn’t even study because no one sees her in the library. 

She lets them talk. She has work to do, and it’s nicer where it’s quiet.

Professors are loud sometimes, but it’s not often, and their TAs tend to prefer each other’s company over quiet, and they respect Nyota’s space. She believes in a little healthy fear, and it helps to have your coworkers respect you enough to leave you the fuck alone.

There’s another professor who likes to come in here to be quiet. Nyota knows his name is McCoy, because Spock addresses him sometimes. McCoy doesn’t really talk much, but when he does, he and Spock are always arguing about something. It seems to be friendly, though, so she doesn’t try to interfere.

McCoy drinks a lot of coffee. A cup an hour a lot of coffee. Nyota asks him once if he believes in water or sleep. He just stares at her for a full minute before downing the remainder of his coffee. 

“No,” he says curtly.

Nyota raises her eyebrows and returns to her essay. She makes a point of reaching for water every time McCoy enters the room from then on. She swears his coffee intake increases in retaliation.

She looks McCoy up in the Starfleet databases one afternoon during midterms. She’s surprised to learn that he’s a doctor, but an idea strikes her after a moment’s thought.

Nyota decides she can afford half an hour away from her homework and heads to the library. She’s on her way to the med center five minutes later, a padd on the dangers of too much caffeine combined with too little sleep tucked under her arm.

McCoy’s profile said that he should be getting out of class any moment now, so she waits outside classroom 4835, her fingernails tapping a rhythm on the padd’s surface. It’s two minutes and three seconds before cadets start flooding into the hallway. It’s a further four minutes before McCoy exits with a student asking him a question. McCoy doesn’t notice her because he’s too busy listening to his companion.

Nyota follows them to what appears to be McCoy’s office. He finally notices her, just as he steps inside.

“Can I help you?”

No “Cadet” or inquisitive eyebrow. Just “Can I help you?” Nyota feels slightly offended. 

“I just came here to give you this.” She shoves the padd at him. “That’s all. Have a good day, Lieutenant Commander.”

Nyota turns on her heel, knowing exactly how her ponytail will swish around her shoulders. She hopes McCoy is staring. She  _ knows _ he’s staring. Everyone stares when she does that move.

*

She sees him the next day in the lounge. He drops the padd next to her on the couch unceremoniously. “To find my classroom, you had to know I’m a doctor, Cadet Uhura. So why exactly did you give me, a medical professional, medical advice?”

Nyota looks up at him through her eyelashes, smiling slowly. “Lieutenant Commander McCoy. You’ve decided to grace me with my name today. I’m pleasantly surprised.”

McCoy actually is thrown off for a moment. “I didn’t know it,” he finally says.

“You could have asked, Lieutenant Commander.” Nyota runs her index and middle fingers along the inside of her collar. His eyes track the movement before flitting back to her face.

“You could have not gotten smart with a superior officer,” McCoy says. He remains standing, and Nyota has to crane her neck to look at him properly. She decides to level the playing field. 

She stands up, and she is suddenly far too close to McCoy to be appropriate. She doesn’t move though, waiting for him to do something.

“You should be more careful with your health, Lieutenant Commander.”

He doesn’t step back. “I don’t appreciate being told what to do, Uhura.”

Nyota is close enough she could sway an inch and touch his chest.  “I don’t like to watch people be foolish with their own health just because medicine is advanced enough to do nearly anything, Lieutenant Commander.”

McCoy inhales sharply as if he is about to say something, but someone comes in and he steps backwards and Nyota sits down again. They don’t talk for four days after that.

*

He’s waiting outside Spock’s office the evening of the fourth day, though. Nyota is talking to Spock as he turns off the light and gathers his things. She is not expecting to see anyone at this time of night. She and Spock will often grade for hours after other professors because they prefer to just get the work done.

But McCoy is standing there, in the xenolinguistics building, at 2304, with his hands behind his back, staring at her. Spock continues to talk about his mother’s upcoming visit while Nyota stands in the doorway of his office, staring back at McCoy.

“Nyota? Do you wish to have lunch with my mother and I on Friday?” Spock’s voice cuts through the haze around Nyota’s head and she hastily nods.

“Yes of course. It’s been ages since I last saw her.” She forces herself to speak normally but her gaze does not leave the man in the hallway.

“Nyota, are you well?” Spock steps around her and notices McCoy standing in the hallway. He raises an eyebrow and looks at Nyota. “Is there something that you would like to tell me, Nyota?”

There’s that faint curve to his mouth which means he’s smiling and Nyota wonders if he will ever find someone who can read him the way she does and love him the way she does not.

“I don’t know why Lieutenant Commander McCoy is here, if that’s what you’re saying, Spock. If he would care to enlighten us both, I would be most grateful.”

McCoy’s arms come around in front of his body. He’s holding a padd out to Nyota, which she takes after a moment’s hesitation. 

“Just this, thank you. Cadet Uhura, Commander Spock.” He tilts his head in acknowledgment and leaves, striding down the long hallway assuredly.

Spock’s other eyebrow joins the first. Nyota knows he will not ask what the padd is, but he is curious. She turns it on and laughs when she sees it’s on fatigue related to schooling.

“It’s a joke,” Nyota says. It might be more than that, but she doesn’t think Spock will condone her flirting with a teacher, no matter that the rules have nothing against this particular situation.

“Indeed.”

*

Nyota leaves thirteen padds on McCoy’s desk the next day, all of them on hypocrisy and the importance of being truthful to one’s self. She feels incredibly satisfied with herself as she goes to class, even if it’s a long walk from the med center to the xenolinguistics building.

They do this- the passive aggressive better than thou shit- for two months before Nyota sets her comm on his desk during finals. 

McCoy looks up at her, confused. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Put your comm number in, Lieutenant Commander.” Nyota allows a hint of irritation to enter her voice, but she keeps her expression neutral.

“And why would I do that, Cadet Uhura?”

“Because I would like to ask you out on a date, you fool. Put your number in and we can drop the titles.”

McCoy doesn’t touch her comm. “How old are you, Cadet Uhura?”

“Twenty. I’m not taking any of your classes. I believe the privacy policy is a good thing and have no desire to flash any relationship we may have all over campus.”

His eyes flick from her face to her comm and back to her face again. “I’m divorced and twenty-seven. I’m not convinced this isn’t some kind of joke.”

Nyota places her hand on his desk. “I was flirting with you. All those padds- it wasn’t just a joke or an argument like you have with Spock. I was flirting. With you. I want to date you. You’re handsome and funny and I have a thing for hands and goodness, do you have nice ones. Do you know how many people on this campus are tripping all over themselves to date me? I picked you. Now put your damn number in my comm. I have my last final in half an hour and I would like to have a nice dinner tonight to celebrate. Dinner with you, if you’ll stop being an idiot.”

McCoy reaches for her comm and puts his number in wordlessly. “Leonard,” he says, after his fingers brush hers giving her her comm back. Then, softly, while he stares at his desk and not her, “You really like my hands?”

Nyota smiles. “I’d like them more if they were wrapped around my waist or tangled in my hair, but I have to run, so I’ll see you tonight at 1900, Leonard.”

She’s halfway out the door before she turns and says, “Nyota.”

Leonard sits at his desk for twenty minutes trying to figure out exactly what he thought he was doing with the cadet- who might be his girlfriend now?- during the past stretch of weeks. He can’t really come up with a good answer. Nyota  _ was _ flirting with him and he was flirting back, despite his better judgement. Maybe there wasn’t any better judgement and that’s how he ended up here. 

She wants to have dinner with him tonight. Leonard might be many things, but he likes to believe he isn’t an idiot. He sends her a message.

_ There’s this place five blocks from here that has good Ethiopian, if you like that? _

Nyota must be taking her final, because she doesn’t respond for two hours. Leonard doesn’t check his comm every five minutes. He has assignments to grade.

_ I do. Meet me by the tree in front of the sim building.  
_

*

Leonard nearly slaps Jim when he tries to grab Leonard’s comm fifteen minutes before he’s meeting Nyota.

“What’s your date’s name?” Jim looks innocent as he makes another grab.

“None of your damn business, Jim. Besides, I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to.”

Jim smirks. “Got yourself tangled up with a cadet?”

“You wish,” Leonard says, and straightens his shirt. “Now I’m going to go on my date, and you are going to leave me alone about it.”

“Of course, Bones. Whatever you say.” Jim slaps his ass and pushes him towards the door. “Go get ‘em.”

*

Nyota looks ethereal in the moonlight. Leonard tells her years later the reason he wants an evening wedding is so he can see her in the moonlight again. Neither of them know that know.

She reaches for his hand and he envelops it in his own. He’s still not sure about this, but she seems to be, so he’s not going to say no. Her surety will carry him through years to come- but he doesn’t know that yet.

Nyota whispers into his neck after he kisses her goodnight that she wants to see him again- soon. He nods, because the stars that dance above them are reflected in her eyes and he wants nothing more than for Nyota to look at him like that for the rest of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a Lot of homework this semester, so this isn't finished as quickly as I would hope, but I'm going to try to get the last chapter done tonight/tomorrow and then the epilogue.... next weekend probably. I just go to school and do homework until I go to sleep during the week, so I don't have time to write. 
> 
> I've never posted something that isn't finished before but I had really awful writer's block for a month and I was so happy I was even writing anything to begin with that I wanted to publish this. So it's out there and it will be finished soon!! Just when I have time. Thank you for all your lovely comments <3


	5. Chapter 5

v.

The first time Leonard and Nyota meet, he is almost eight and she is four months old. He holds her small body with something akin to wonder, because he only has older sisters- four of them, and he would rather not have another, thank you very much- and he hasn’t really had the chance to hold a baby before. 

She smiles at him in her sleep and Leonard can hardly think of anything else for a week. He doesn’t tell his mother or his sisters, though. They’d make fun of him, he’s pretty sure.

There’s a fraction of a chance- Spock later tells Leonard that the probability is approximately 5.4%- that Nyota’s family will stay next door to Leonard’s family for the rest of their lives, considering how often both their families have moved.

But neither the Uhuras nor the McCoys ever move again. Leonard watches Nyota grow up, her curls climbing down the arch of her spine and her legs lengthening as she climbs trees and runs down the street. 

He ends up babysitting her when he’s in high school, because he loves kids and her parents trust him. They don’t pay him much, but he doesn’t mind, because Nyota loves him. Leonard can’t explain why she does, just that she gravitates to him like she is the moon and he is the earth. Later, he will know that he is the moon and she is the sun. For now, though- he indulges her interest in his friendship.

Leonard’s friends mock him for Nyota trailing him around half the time- on bike rides and trips to the grocery store and walks to the mailbox. He gets new friends.

He gets into Ole Miss, which is the only school he even wants to go to. Nyota cries for five hours when he tells her- she’s eleven now and maybe has a crush on him- and tells Leonard that if he leaves she’ll die.

“You’re being dramatic,” he sighs. 

“I’m not.” Nyota stamps her foot. “You’re being rude and insensitive.” She crosses her arms. “You’re my best friend in the whole wide world, Len. What am I going to do when you’re gone to  _ college _ ? I can’t run next door and see you right away anymore! You can’t come over for dinner all the time or anything!”

Leonard tugs an unwilling Nyota closer to him. “I promise that I’ll come home every weekend and you can come have Sunday dinner with my family. Okay?”

He chucks her chin, something he’s done a thousand times, but it feels forced somehow. Nyota isn’t three or six or even eight anymore. She’s right. He’s leaving her after being her closest friend for years.

Leonard can hear her brother and sister tramp down the stairs. He stands up and places his hands on Nyota’s shoulders. “C’mon, Nyota. I’ll give you a piggyback ride one last time. And I’ll be back in a week.”

Nyota sighs, her face still twisted. “I don’t need piggyback rides anymore, Len. I’m  _ eleven. _ ” She says eleven like it means  _ I’m the most grownup person in the world. _

“If you insist.” Len kisses her forehead and walks out of the Uhuras’ kitchen. His throat closes up as he slams the screen behind him. He can hear Nyota latch it, her bare feet hardly making any noise on the carpet. He knows she’s watching him walk next door and go inside.

He makes it to his own room before he starts crying. It’s stupid, really. Nyota is an eleven year-old. It’s not like he owes her anything. Except he does somehow.

Leonard goes to school. It’s not exactly the worst thing he’s ever done in his life, but he’s still looking forward to the first weekend he returns home. Nyota is waiting for him inside his living room when he walks in the door, and she’s hugging him before he can even set his bag down.

This continues until she turns thirteen, and then she decides she’s too grownup to come over every Sunday. She tells Leonard she has “things to do, like homework.”

Leonard just nods. Nyota has always been strong-willed. He has no delusions about her stubbornness and doesn’t even try to convince her otherwise.

And then he brings Joss home.

Nyota attends the first dinner Joss comes back for- two months from fourteen and Leonard has seen her five times this year. Nyota asks her usual questions and Joss says patronizing things to her.

Nyota actually yells at Joss before turning on Leonard. “Len, I swear that I’m going to rip your girlfriend’s hair out if she ever speaks to me that way again. You need to pick a better girlfriend.” She stands, to Len’s mother’s protest and Joss’s stony silence, and walks out the front door. Leonard hears her utter an Andorian curse that he only recognizes because it’s one of Nyota’s favorites.

He’s out on the porch before he knows what he’s doing, watching her ponytail disappear inside her house. It’s thirteen seconds before he sees her curtains twitch.

Joss joins him on the porch. “You want to tell me why the fuck a teenager just treated me like trash and you didn’t say anything? Who even is Nyota?”

Leonard turns, slowly, knowing that Nyota is still watching him. “She’s important to me,” he says, his words careful. The anger boiling in his chest is threatening to spill out of his mouth and he does like Joss- quite a lot actually. “You treated her like a child. Did you know Nyota knows thirteen languages? One for every year she’s been alive. Fourteen is coming up soon. She’s been saving Vulcan for fourteen.”

Joss’s face softens. “Okay, Len. If that’s it. I just don’t understand why the neighbor girl came to dinner.”

“Because she’s important to me,” Leonard says again.

Nyota doesn’t come over when Joss does ever again. When Leonard goes into med school a year later, she smiles at him. 

“Doctor Leonard Horatio McCoy,” she says. “It sounds nice.”

Len just nods. Nyota sings in her school choir now and runs in her spare time. She’s already made it through all three dialects of Vulcan and is focusing on Welsh right now. She’s already told Len that he has nice hair in the strange sounds of the ancient language.

He doesn’t know what to say to Nyota lately. There’s a gap now, and he’s not sure if it’s Joss or because she’s growing up faster than he can blink.

He tries not to think about it. 

Leonard tells Nyota that he asked Joss to marry him at her graduation party. Nyota stares at him for so long he’s afraid there’s something wrong. 

“You shouldn’t marry her,” she says. She won’t talk to him for the rest of the night, despite her party being small and mostly family.

Nyota comes to his wedding, but refuses to stay longer than the ceremony. Leonard watches her father argue with her and try to convince her to stay longer, but even he knows it’s futile. She’s being rude on purpose, and he can’t exactly figure it out.

She goes to San Francisco for college. They do not speak for three and a half years. It’s not that Leonard wants things that way, it’s just that Joss has never understood and therefore doesn’t encourage him, and Nyota has made it very clear her opinions on Joss. So they don’t talk for three and a half years.

They are the worst years of Leonard’s life.

When he finally manages to get away from Joss and the child she is pregnant with by another man, he doesn’t bother going home. That’s not where Nyota is, or the answer to his problems. Going home won’t fix anything.

Going to Starfleet won’t fix anything either, but it’s a guarantee he’ll never have to see Joss again, so he’ll take it.

Leonard runs into Nyota his first day at the Academy and nearly drops his books. She was stunning at eighteen, but now she holds herself with an assuredness and grace that he cannot even begin to describe. 

It’s odd, looking at a woman he’s known since she was four months old and realizing that she’s not a little girl anymore.

“Hello, Len.” Nyota’s voice is just as soft and sure as he remembered. “I heard you and Joss broke up.”

It must have been his mother, Len thinks. “You were right,” he says, and scuffs his boot before squinting at her. “It’s been awhile, Nyota.”

Nyota laughs quickly before her face sobers. “I’ve missed you.”

And then they’re talking again. Neither of them have very much free time, but they find ways to have coffee together before class or study together for hours in silence. She doesn’t like Jim very much, but that’s alright, because Jim is a bit of a pain in the ass. Her roommate is always having sex with people, so they never go to either of their rooms.

Leonard doesn’t think that idea would be very appropriate either. They’re both consenting adults, but the thought of being alone with Nyota after decades of knowing each other as friends is just  _ odd. _ He’s not entirely sure that it being odd is the only reason he doesn’t want to be alone in  _ that _ kind of situation, but he’s freshly divorced and anything having to do with dating or even sex is too much work and annoying.

He catches Nyota staring at him sometimes and she always says she’s thinking of some memory when they were younger.

They spend two years like this, their friendship stronger than it was even when they were younger. That’s what he says at least, and Nyota always smiles and nods.

Another two years pass- these ones with Nyota saying his friendship is all she’s ever really wanted.

Except the night before they’re due to ship out on the  _ Enterprise _ \- Nyota had smiled with tears in her eyes when she learned they would be posted to the same ship. “It’ll be just like when we were younger,” she said, and she got this odd look to her face and hurried off.- Leonard is having a drink with her in her dorm room- the first time he’s entered it.

Nyota’s roommate is off somewhere else having sex apparently, and they talk about their friendship enough that Leonard thinks it will be okay.

He has one glass of scotch before his hand brushes hers a little too softly and she’s a little too close and they’re staring into each other’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Leonard says, and he doesn’t mean it, not one bit.

“Please forgive me,” Nyota says, and he thinks it’s an odd thing to say until she kisses him.

Kissing her is like coming home- their houses with a patch of grass between them all those years crashing into each other in a kaleidoscope that tastes like scotch and feels like heaven. She climbs onto his lap after a solid minute and Leonard lets her, because Nyota is always right.

She finally pulls away after three minutes. “Don’t you understand,” she whispers, her voice hoarse and ready to break. “Don’t you understand?” She repeats. “It’s always been you, Len. Always always always.”

Len is breathing heavily and trying to come to terms with the fact that Nyota Uhura has her hands in his hair and  _ wants him. _ He doesn’t need to come to terms, really though, because she’s right. He’s always been hers.

“Okay,” he says. “I promised I would come home to you once.” He chokes back a sob then and buries his face into her hair. “I’ll come home every night, every hour, every minute you ask of me. I’ll come home.”

“You’re home right now,” Nyota whispers.

Leonard wonders briefly if there’s a universe out there somewhere where she isn’t his home before he realizes he doesn’t want to think about that reality. He doesn’t have to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should never ever promise anything on any time schedule ever. School this semester is a little crazy to say the least, and then I've had writer's block/been working on other things when I have had time, so. You finally got chapter 5 and there's an epilogue coming....I just don't know exactly when. Probably not more than two weeks though.


	6. epilogue

vi.

Leonard wakes up in some worlds without Nyota by his side. He can never place the ache until it is filled.

Their souls are magnetised, he thinks- every time, even though he doesn’t know it. There’s just this snap in the air when they meet that cuts him to his core. He wonders what Nyota feels.

Nyota has one of the highest psi abilities ever recorded in humans, but she doesn’t go spreading that fact around in any of her lives. She catches glimpses of her and Leonard sometimes in her dreams, and she wonders if reincarnation has anything to do with psi ability. It’s what she does her Ph.D. research on in the lifetime where she and Leonard meet in grad school in 2120. Reincarnation is a highly speculative subject, but there’s just enough evidence for a scientific mind to not dismiss it.

Leonard listens to her research with amused interest until she shows him a memory from a planet that they won’t discover for two hundred years. 

“You think that our same souls are destined to find each other? Every time? I don’t believe in soulmates, you know.”

He wouldn’t, not after Jocelyn. He never does after Jocelyn.

Nyota tilts her head and gives him the look that means he’s making dinner tonight. “I love you,” she says. “Predestination is bullshit even if we’re like this in every alternate universe or the past and the future or how ever you want to view non-linear time. All that really matters is that we found each other in this universe, timeline, or century.”

Leonard squeezes her hand. 

She finds him when she’s forty-two in the next universe. She starts crying the first time she sees him, because she knows that he died in her arms in the last one.

“What the hell are you crying for?” he asks, but he’s already giving her that concerned look that her past lives know so well.

Nyota’s throat is tight and her hands are shaking. “Because I’ve found you,” she says. She doesn’t explain in this universe.

Leonard is always content with whatever she tells him, because he always loves her more than anything else he could ever care for.

She likes the times he never married Joss best, but Joanna is always wonderful.

There’s one life where she doesn’t recognize exactly what’s been going on- the cosmic swirl that always brings them together- until they’ve been friends for forty years and their hair is long gray. 

Their love always surprises her, though. It’s always more than she ever could have imagined and it always leaves her talented tongue speechless. Leonard is just as speechless, even if his psi ability is next to nothing. 

“I’ll love you until the universe collapses,” Nyota tells him one night, on a cruiseliner passing by the Hiron Nebula. They’re on their honeymoon in this universe, and the year is 4893.

Leonard laughs. “You would say that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was unintentional lol. I was literally about to go to bed and then I wrote the epilogue, so you got lucky!! No two week wait!!
> 
> I was explaining to my friend the other day why I loved spuhura so much, and that lead me to think about why I love mchura as much as I do. There’s just this inevitability about them- like they have always known each other and always will; that they will always be comfortable and find comfort in their togetherness. There’s nothing complicated about their love. It’s just them: they are each other’s home. 
> 
> I could go on for forever, honestly, but I hope you liked it!! Comments are always appreciated and if you would like, you can find me on tumblr [here](https://uhurasnyota.tumblr.com/).


End file.
